Tag Archives: virtual environment

Digital or Not: Social Practices Key

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Using wireless Internet learning devices (WILDs) or Virtual Environments (VE) in an elementary classroom setting offers students unique social affordances that enrich learning experiences beyond traditional interactions that attempt to build collective knowledge. With these digital technologies, students begin to interact within a “network that is overlaid in the same physical space in which students and teachers participate socially in teaching and learning” (Roschelle, 2003) enabling diverse options for interactivity that extend beyond the walls of the classroom, but happen simultaneously within the context of the classroom. When students are exposed to the coupling of “normal social participation in classroom discussion and the new informatics participation among connected devices” (Roschelle, 2003), implications for enhanced student learning radiate from diversifying pedagogical practices and engaging students in a new social space that breaks down established social patterns laying new stronger connections in its wake.

Shifting traditional instructional approaches towards educational reform grounded in constructivist principles, such as inquiry-based learning and the social construction of knowledge, can be supported through the pedagogically sound application of WILDs or VEs in the elementary classroom. The frightening prospect of online applications that plague some teachers needs to be recognized for the cognitive dissonance it can provide educators and the potential for improved pedagogy it can offer in this light. Schools often capitalize on the fear of the unknown prohibiting student access to WILDs or alternative web-based applications in an attempt to shield students from certain distraction or inappropriate content; however, these decisions also remove invaluable teaching opportunities connected to digital literacy and digital boundaries. Digital technology is frequently criticized as depersonalizing social interactions, but in reality if learning environments are designed appropriately, it can set new precedents for enhanced interaction between greater numbers of students which will enrich learning for everyone.

Pedagogically developed social practices are essential features of community-centered classrooms. When instructional design affords students opportunities to learn from each other and contemplate their ideas in relation to other perspectives, knowledge integration and respectful discourse is both supported and encouraged. WILDs and VEs foster the development of collective knowledge even further by diversifying the manner in which students make their thinking visible and minimizing the anxiety often materializing from participating in whole-class face to face discussions. This emphasis on social interaction is a hallmark of effective classrooms, so it is not surprising that the “most successful Internet and handheld technologies tend to involve rich social practices built around rather simple (but uniquely functional and reliable) technology” (Roschelle, 2003). Integrating WILDs and VEs extend the possibilities for student to student and teacher to student interactions inspiring teachers to re-imagine what learning can look like in a classroom and online.

Digital technologies have the potential to increase student engagement which in turn, increases student presence and ultimately, improves students’ availability for learning (Winn, 2002); however, connectivity and digital resources are only a small piece of designing successful learning environments. As Roschelle (2003) states, “technology performs a small, well-defined function uniquely well, but much of the rest of teaching and learning is left to social practice”, signifying potential repercussions for the educator or institution that does not place merit on the pedagogy behind social interactions in the classroom. It is from this facilitated interaction and ensuing discourse that the potential for conceptual change emerges through cognitive dissonance requiring students to revise or generate new connections between concepts. Like the TELEs explored in earlier lessons, embodied learning using WILDs or VEs can help foster a community of learning and inquiry when they are integrated as components of pedagogically sound instructional design. They can help transform learning experiences for elementary students while providing “rich conceptual resources for reasoning about and thoughtfully acting in playful spaces” (Roschelle, 2003) as well as scaffold the social construction of knowledge through aggregation, asynchronous discourse, or collaboration.

image: student_ipad_school – 136 by flickeringbrad released under a CC Attribution license

Winn, W., Windschitl, M., Fruland, R., & Lee, Y. (2002). When does immersion in a virtual environment help students construct understanding? Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Roschelle, J; Penuel, W.; Yarnall, L; Shechtman, N; Tatar, D. (2005). Handheld tools that ‘Informate’ assessment of student learning in science: A requirements analysis. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 21(3), pp. 190-203. Full text available online at UBC Library.

Roschelle, J. (2003). Unlocking the learning value of wireless mobile devices. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 19(3), pp. 260-272.Retrieved November 4, 2008, from: http://ctl.sri.com/publications/displayPublication.jsp?ID=296

 

Communities of Learning and Connectedness

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Technology Enhanced Learning Experiences developed using anchored instruction in the Jasper Series, Scaffolded Knowledge Integration in WISE, Learning for Use in My World and T-GEM in Chemland place importance on the social construction of knowledge, but collaborative opportunities to build collective understanding are primarily dependent on the instructional strategies used to integrate these activities. With each of the TELEs investigated earlier, interactions and collaboration between students were set to occur either asynchronously and/or in virtual or actual spaces outside of the technology in question. Online networked communities, on the other hand, are inspired by shared experiences designed to cultivate the collaborative construction of meaning and emphasize the advantages of a collective experience.

Immersing students in a virtual learning environment presents a teacher with the opportunity to encourage and develop a learning community that can tackle authentic and real-world issues while stepping out of a traditional direct instructional role to one focused on facilitating guided participation. Networked communities by nature exude diversified expertise which if supported successfully will strengthen the emerging community of practice that builds on the concept that “learning does not belong to individual persons, but to the various conversations” students are a part of (McDermott in Murphy, 1999). Teachers must be prepared to shift their role to become “a broker” linking the learning community to external resources that become integral components of the learning process. While teacher interference and omnipotent supervision can threaten the community, instructors must also realize that their presence is essential as students develop their collaboration and communication skills through their interactions with each other, the teacher, and the educational material. Winn, Stahr, Sarason, Fruland, Oppenheimer, & Lee (2005) and Spicer & Stratford (2001) stress that in any classroom situation the teacher’s role impacts the efficiency and effectiveness of learning and that “changing students’ conceptions cannot work without instructional support” (Winn et al., 2005). Whether it’s to help students acquire necessary background information, creatively invite student participation, or strategically provide guidance related to curricula or the online experience, teachers are critical factors in making networked communities viable.

The more authentic a learning experience is, the more present students are, and the more they learn. Traditionally, in the classroom it’s assumed that learning “has a beginning and an end; that it is separated from the rest of our activities; and that it is the result of teaching” (Wenger, 1998). This perception emphasizes explicit and codeified knowledge over tacit knowledge and places greater emphasis on student’s ability to understand concepts within a classroom context instead of developing their adaptive expertise that will enable them to apply these skills in the future in the outside world. Using networked communities to connect globally with experts in various fields of math and science, other classrooms and each other to learn about and solve real world issues authenticates the learning process and makes “life itself … the main learning event” (Wenger, 2000) facilitating greater possibilities for transfer.

Sound pedagogy must accompany the integration of virtual environments and their networked communities into classrooms. As Spicer & Stratford (2001) point out, incorporating these as “replacements for ‘real’ field work on purely managerial, timetabling, and/or economic grounds is a flawed one” and will likely be fraught with frustration. Successful implementation is about more than using the technology – it involves a potential shift in mind set about the roles technology and the teacher play in learning. Virtual field trips and other simulated environments need to be used strategically to complement “real” field trips or uncover phenomena not available to students by other means. These experiences can expose students to a bigger picture of an environment or issue that may be more difficult for students to piece together on their own. They can be used to visualize “information in ways that students in the field cannot see … [or] can only be inferred indirectly in the field from instruments” (Winn et al., 2005) and afford explanatory opportunities to supplement descriptive visualizations to deepen understanding of phenomena. Condensing real-world experiences into virtual ones can limit the amount of information students need to process reducing potential cognitive overload and increasing abstraction, and in turn help students strengthen their background knowledge and associated schema to prepare them for field experience. Since “it is axiomatic that relevant prior knowledge or experience increases student learning” (Winn, 2005), using authentically designed virtual experiences can enrich conceptualization by enhancing preparations for experiences in the real world. When students can connect to prior knowledge the depth of their understanding increases as they are provided with subsequent opportunities to engage in reflective practice and draw inferences within new “real” contexts. Consequently, networked communities are most valuable to the learning process when they are designed to add depth to student understanding and are supported by meaningful pedagogical approaches in the math and science classroom that do not take away from opportunities to participate in real-world experiences.

image: Spider Web by xJason.Rogersx released under a CC Attribution license

 

References

Murphy, P. (ed.) (1999) Learners, Learning and Assessment, London: Paul Chapman. See, also, Leach, J. and Moon, B. (eds.) (1999) Learners and Pedagogy, London: Paul

Spicer, J., & Stratford, J. (2001). Student perceptions of a virtual field trip to replace a real field trip. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 17, 345-354.

Wenger, E. (2007). Communities of practice–A brief introduction. http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm

Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., and Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge – Seven Principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/2855.html

Winn, W., Stahr, F. Sarason, C., Fruland, R., Oppenheimer, P., & Lee, Y-L. (2006). Learning oceanography from a computer simulation compared with direct experience at sea. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 43(1), 25-42.